N24 liveblog: race day

Blow by blow account of PH's trip to the 'ring 24-hour

You can read about the adventures we had getting here on yesterday's blog. But we'll start a new one for the race itself as there's going to be tons to talk about as the day goes on.

To get you in the mood here are some great shots from our man with the camera, Frozenspeed's Jochen. These are from qualifying yesterday - plenty more of this as we go on too.

Stay tuned!

Dan

Sunday: CJ's hotel balcony, 1600hSo it's over! And in typically N24 fashion, the #11 Manthey Porsche losing third place to the #66 Heico SLS literally yards before the finish line after battling all the way round the final lap, conking out just over the line and then having a Clio crash into the back of it, meaning winners came round to waved yellows as well as the chequered flag. Mental! The smoke in the pic is fireworks, not the Porsche, which is obscured just behind the explosion.

And the R8 is, finally, an overall Nurburgring 24-hour winner! Congratulations to all the drivers in the winning #3 Team Phoenix car - Marc Basseng, Christopher Haase, Markus Winkelhock and Frank Stippler. And with the #26 Mamerow Racing R8 in second that's a 1-2 for Audi. Bad luck for the hard-charging Z4s though - the best they could manage was the #29 Marc VDS Racing Team in fifth after dominating the event until the small hours this morning with the Team Schubert cars.

And there's still a McLaren running at the N24 - ours! Time to hit the road and head home...

Dan

Sunday: Pit garage 27, 1500hrPopped into the Nissan pit garage. Where it was if not manic then certainly charged, and I found no-one prepared to say anything until after the race. Given there’s only two hours to go, I guess that’s not really a surprise. Another set of tyres now beckons…

At the top it remains R8-R8-SLS-911 – although the teams have changed. Audi Sport Team Phoenix (who conveniently have a shop in the Nurodisney complex here – which I suspect is probably currently doing a brisk trade) are leading the way in car #3, while the dominant SLS force is now Hancook-Team Heico, with car #65 in third and #66 in fifth; Mamerow Racing’s R8 is in third.

Worth a mention, just because we haven’t yet is car #1 – the awesome Competizione P4/5, which is one of the easiest cars on the circuit to identify by both sight and sound. The cackling noise it makes on the over-run rivals the strafing thunder of the SLS for greatest ringtone potential of the event.

Considering the car is unique – albeit based over well proven Ferrari mechanicals – for it to be running 14th right now is a superb achievement. Living the dream.

CJ

Sunday: Audi hospitality area, 1445hSo, just over an hour to go and it looks like Audi could well be onto finally take an overall win for the first time here with the R8 LMS. That Ultra bit has obviously done the trick. Rotten luck for the various BMW Z4s that have looked massively quick all weekend but have fallen by the wayside in the final hours.

Quattro boss Stephan Reil looks on

There's an air of cautious optimism here in the Audi hospitality area, which is simultaneously showing the 24H and the DTM from Brands Hatch. Somewhat bizarre to be in Germany, with Germans, watching a German racing series ... taking place in the UK.

That chap in the photo with his back to us is Stephan Reil, boss of Quattro GmbH whom I met in Geneva earlier in the year. This is his patch - the customer R8 LMS and TT RS very much Quattro products while Wolfgang Ullrich takes charge of the Le Mans and DTM cars. Either way, it's looking good for Audi at the 'ring - less good at Brands where they're trailing the Mercs and BMWs.

Dan

Sunday: Nissan Racecamp, 1220hI’ve downsized. Instead of driving the GT-R Track Pack back, I’m going home in a 370Z – which should prove an interesting comparison. Although it is already obvious that both cars share one thing in common: a lack of genuinely exciting noise. Nissan needs to sort this issue, stat.

Anyhoo, while I haven’t quite got official word about what happened to the #23 race GT-R – it really is that chaotic here – it seems that pretty much everything important on the car had to be swapped over during the night. To be honest, given how har it was going round the corners when I was stood with Dan in the middle of the forest at 2:30am this morning I’m not entirely surprised.

Heading to the garage in a little while to see if I can get some proper confirmation. Meanwhile, the R8 and the SLS GT3 cars continue to duke it out for the top four spots, the Z4s are closing up again, and the #11 Manthey Porsche is still lurking in position number 5…

CJ

Sunday: Dorint Hotel, 1100hThe One-77 Dan mentioned what seems like days ago? It’s been parked outside my hotel all weekend, along with about six showrooms’ worth of other Astons. Snapped it knapping this morning. Not sure you can call it a pretty animal, but is it a better Aston than the one next to is?

This is just one of many Cygnets in the vicinity, (there’s a, well, lime yellow example outside the front door, and another in the lobby), the Dorint apparently being Aston’s home for the duration as well. Gazoo Racing are also here – and all things considered I think I’d much rather be driving its supercharged version of the iQ, which is parked in the Nürodisney shopping complex just up the road.

If the iQ isn’t your thing, what about the 320hp Gazoo Racing GT86 which makes its public debut here, looking ever so much like Toyota’s potential answer to a 911 GT3. Albeit one that says the hell with natural aspiration and hello twin charger technology.

As you’d expect the place is awash with tweaked up German metal – even the security people are riding around in brand new RS4s (yes, as in the one that isn’t even really out yet). So it takes something special to really stand out from the crowd. Despite what Herr Durheimer was telling Dan yesterday morning, however, I’m not sure that really excuses fitting a Supersport with yellow wheels…

CJ

Sunday: Dorint Hotel, 1000hWell, shucks. The last time I mentioned the GT-Rs number #23 was approaching the top 30; by the time I actually hit the track again it was down in 97th – and when I woke up this morning it had slipped back again. Clearly the overnight rain didn’t benefit the GT-R’s four-wheel drive system.

As Dan’s already mentioned, actually trying to figure out what’s happening at the circuit while at the circuit is tricky to say the least, so beyond hearing about a stop and go penalty yesterday evening and discovering it’s spent at least three hours in the pits, I can’t yet say for sure what’s happened to the car.

The #123 car is still going steady, however, currently sitting in 38th spot and proving consistency is as important as speed if you’re racing for an entire day.

Getting a decent amount of kip is also crucial – there have been a number of incidents this morning in the drying conditions that suggest fatigue is really starting to set in for some teams.

CJ

Sunday: the hotel, 0810hSod's law as soon as I wimped out and went off to the hotel all hell, well, rain broke loose and the race has been turned upside down. So it's bye-bye #19 BMW and its #2 Audi is down the rankings, the lead now taken by the #22 Rowe SLS that apparently won the battle of tyre choice.

The only way to really follow the race, sadly

It'll take us a little while to get back to the track and into the thick of it but here's the irony - if you actually want to follow the racing the Nurburgring is the last place you want to be. I got a more detailed picture of the race in 15 minutes of listening to Radio Le Mans and checking the N24 website than I did in several hours trackside!

What you miss of course is the atmosphere and sheer childlike glee that makes me want to jump up and down with excitement as another tightly packed gaggle of cars screams past and then off into the woods once again.

And what was I saying about the Porsche's looking relentlessly consistent? The Manthey car is up to fourth. It's still the only one in a top 10 dominated by R8s, SLSes and a couple of Z4s. But those boys are past masters...

Dan

Sunday: the hotel, 0300hA brief one this; I'm knackered and need some kip. I know, I know, I should man up and see it through...

Anyway, I went back up to the woods after dark and there I found all manner of weird and wonderful things. Lots of catastrophically drunk people keen to leer all over the McLaren. Fires. The most incredible improvised viewing platforms ever devised. More drunk people. More fires. Terrible techno music. And eventually the track.

Seeing these cars at night is something else. The SLSes are the coolest, side exhausts and brake discs glowing, V8 thunder echoing across the forest as they pass. The P4/5 is pretty epic too, spitting out bangs and pops as it goes. But, boy, those Z4s. Absolute weapons and, when I left, the pole sitting #19 Team Schubert car (Alzen, Muller, et al) was still leading, though trading places with the #2 Team Phoenix Audi R8 and chased by the #22 Rowe Racing SLS. The most shocking thing? Only one Porsche in the top 10 when I last checked. But you rule them out at your peril. They look relentlessly consistent.

We'll see how it's looking once day breaks...

Dan

Saturday: media centre, 2100hWant to see what a lap of the 'ring looks like at night? Dan from McLaren just shared this clip with me from free practise the other night. Blimey.

Dan

Saturday: media centre, 2120hI was hoping to share with you a link to the McLaren Pitwall page that hard working PR man Dave Eden has been diligently updating with all the latest on the MP4-12Cs – a lot more diligently than I have this blog it has to be said. You can still look at the link. But, sadly, there’s no good McLaren news to report with all three cars tragically knocked out in accidents on track. This is especially tough given that the Gemballa car was making steady progress and had made up over 20 places from the 39th place qualifying position.

It’s a bitter blow and I’m gutted for the McLaren guys who look utterly crestfallen.

The race goes on though and we’re back from a trip out into the woods and it’s a whole different picture out there. THIS is the Nurburgring and a world away from the sterile GP track. I’ve been watching, open mouthed, at the bottom of the hill leading to Pflanzgarten 1 as the cars peel into the downhill run to the yump, lights ablaze with the faster cars flashing their headlights to clear the way, bottoming out after the jump with a skrrrfff of carbon fibre and then powering through the right hand exit. Mesmerising stuff. The Gazoo LFA sounds awesome, its searing V10 howl cutting through both the forest and over the sound of the other engines. The Z4s – number 19 has been leading and is now in third after some pit stops – look savagely fast and efficient, the R8s and SLSes wickedly quick too. Oh, and there’s the odd Porsche or two that sounds pretty good too, the difference in pace between the top 20 or so runners and the rest of the field really noticeable. Seeing a pack of half a dozen cars made up of an SLS or two, a 911, an R8 and one of those screaming Z4s bouncing around, rubbing door handles and sweeping backmarkers out of the way with utter disdain is just awesome stuff. Can’t wait for it to get dark – bet it’s even more impressive then.

Dan

Saturday: Dorint Hotel, 8:30pmDropped back to the hotel room to do a quick bit of copy filing and charge the laptop. The race coverage here is so sorted that as well as looking out of my window and watching the cars go by I can also view them on the TV. Flick up a few channels and I can view the timing screens, too. Handy – if I were staying in one place.

But I’m not, I’m heading out into the forest to try and find some of the real action. The stuff that involves barbeques and beer.

I’ll be packing a coat, though. Sun since the about an hour before the start means there are plenty of people now pink with sunburn – but I overheard one of the Dunlop tyre techs telling the others they’d just had word that rain was coming between 10 and 11 o’clock.

We’re in for a wet night, he reckoned. That would certainly shake things up a bit… let’s see if it turns out to be true.

CJ

Saturday: pit garage 27, 1845-1930hJust been watching some pits stops as the race enters its fourth hour. The grid is so massive here that multiple cars share the same garage - so the teams looking after the two Track Pack GT-R cars occupy the same space as a pair of BMWs.

These are less well-specified cars, so no air jacks or centre lock wheels here. But it took me a moment to realise that the mechanics are lifting all four wheels off the ground using just two jacks, and then balancing them using a pair of supplementary axle stands and whole lot of bodies. Presumably there's some kind of regulatory reason for this behaviour...

Mizuno-san is looking relatively pleased with the performance of his #23 car so far - it broke into the top 40 at just after 7pm, and is currently running at 31 as I type this. As I was in the garage Michael Krumm ended his stint; he looked hot, but was smiling, feeding back to Mizuno and the Dunlop tyre engineers.

CJ

Saturday: McLaren hospitality area, 1630hSo they're off! And the carnage has already started with an incredibly high attrition rate even for 'ring. But not before my somewhat incredible opportunity to sit beside Juha Kankkunen for a parade lap of Bentleys to lead out the field. And what a dude Kankkunen is, chatting freely about his collection of Group B cars, how he and Bentley Le Mans hero Guy Smith have been talking about coming here "for a play" and how he reckons the Nordschleife feels more like a tarmac special stage than a racetrack.

PH T-shirt to help Kankkunen learn his way

The timetable for the parade lap was pretty tight too, the coordination required to get 160-odd cars out on track with the leaders crossing the startline at precisely 4pm taking some thorough German organisation and pretty careful pacing of the Bentleys. Especially given that there were still fans on track. "If you see people in the windscreen slow down, if you see race cars in the mirror speed up!" was the advice to Kankkunen from one of the Bentley organisers but in the end all was fine. An amazing view of the track too, the barbecues, improvised viewing platforms and thousands upon thousands of already well lubricated fans all adding to the atmosphere.

Time to get out there amongst them and cheer some McLarens on. One of the Dorr cars has already been in the pits and another just spotted bouncing across the grass so hopefully things can only improve from here.

Dan

Saturday: Nürburgring, 9am-12pmSince I'm lucky enough to be staying at the 'ring, I haven't had quite such an early start as Dan. But it's been a busy one.

We started out trying to grab a few local flavour shots of the GT-R Track Pack, on the hopeful basis that the roads would be quiet. No chance. This place is already buzzing - I even ended up in a procession with a bunch of other UK-plated GT-Rs. Hello whoever you are!

Pictures bagged, I then hustled off to an interview session with Mizuno-san - Mr GT-R himself. This guy is awesome. Within minutes he was up and scribbling away on a giant notepad, illustrating the difference between the road going Track Pack and the car driven by the team he's managing in the race.

This is all part of GT-R development

Car #23 has been entered under the "GT-R Development Team" and that isn't a joke. It's basically a Track Pack car with a roll cage, a bigger fuel tank, centre-lock magnesium alloy wheels and a number of other modifications that will eventually make it into production. Speaking repeatedly of "the customer," Mizuno-san explains that he's treating the N24 as an extended development test for future versions of the very vehicle that's already in production.

We'll cover this in more detail in a full feature shortly - there's plenty to discuss - but suffice to say there's a plan here. One that may go someway to answering some of Harris' questions about the current Track Pack car.

Finally, there was just time to grab a quick interview with Michal Krumm - the GT1 world champion who's part of the driver line-up for this very development car. He spoke very frankly about the challenges of driving a road car in a race like this. This covered the issues you'd expect - like the brakes (astonishingly, they're running the standard discs and pads) - but also ones you wouldn't. Like the fact the GT-R is faster than practically all of the GT3 cars on the straights... This, as you can imagine, brings some unusual challenges.

I'll talk more about this later if I get time. But for now I'm off to the grid...

CJ

Saturday: McLaren hospitality area, 1245hSlightly manic morning running round chasing folk and bandwidth to throw some updates up. There's so much to take in it can get a bit bewildering. Help, I'm being pushed into the path of a Porsche being moved through the paddock! Look, some idiots are driving go-karts round the whole Nordschleife/GP lap!

Three Z4s are in the top 10 ... impressive

I bumped into CJ at the Nissan shop on the 'ring boulevard and he's full of talk of meeting with Mizuno-san (aka, Mr GT-R) who, via the medium of drawing, explained how the Track Pack GT-R is just one step in his five-year plan for GT-R development.

I was also keen to check in with the GT 86s, Toyota Europe man Danny Chen giving us a tour of the wildly busy pit garage containing the two near-standard cars run by the Swiss importer and the two not at all standard Gazoo cars. The relationship with Gazoo seems odd. They're kind of in-house but nobody at Toyota professes to have any clue what they're up to or how. So the Gazoo cars are modified. But nobody's saying how. The all-Japanese crews with them are all production line guys and enthusiasts who've offered themselves up for a European adventure and who can blame them. Two of the drivers are development guys rather than out and out racers too, which would indicate an interest within Toyota to take the GT 86 further. Whether that extends to the 320hp twincharger concept I'm intending to check out further at some point remains to be seen though.

And what of the race? The official site is a good source of qualifying information and other stuff like that but the Z4s look ominously quick (and very mean), likewise the Audis. The McLarens are a little off the qualifying pace, the fastest back in 27th. But this is a marathon not a sprint and all that...

Dan

Saturday: Lindner Hotel, 1000hA heavyweight industry interview wasn't quite the way I expected my N24 adventures to begin but Bentley asked if I'd like a chat with Wolfgang Durheimer, ex-Porsche man and now the chap in charge at Crewe. Er, OK. One should always approach such interviews with due preparation and seriousness so I necked an extra large gulp of Day Nurse, did some frantic last minute swotting and made it to the Lindner just in time.

Morning wake-up call, PH style

Serious chap Durheimer too. I asked him why Bentley's here, not having any race presence and he said, simply, it's a huge gathering of car enthusiasts and it should be playing a part. I'll be getting a first hand taste of this later as I - and I'm pinching myself here - sit beside Juha Kankkunen as we lead the pack round the formation lap before the start of the main race. Yes, that's as mental as it sounds. And Durheimer doesn't rule out Bentley getting stuck in properly in the future. A GT3 spec Conti GT? He's keen.

This after a fun run through the Eifel in the MP4-12C. The road up to Hohe Acht was entertainingly twisty, especially on the slithery hairpins. I say entertaining, PR man Dave beside me did make a grab for bits of interior as we gaily understeered towards the trees on a particularly greasy bend. That cooled my boots a bit and from that point it was back to proper supercar detail - namely slowing to a crawl, engaging first and then nailing it any time we went past a campsite or group of camera wielding fans. Lots more thumbs up for the McLaren here - it's getting a lot of love.

Now off to the media centre to try and make sense of quali and the race ahead.